27 nobling” character of Slavery, so it must lose n-s*much if not all of its force when the latter as- ut Jsumption is shown to be false, as has been done a to-day. When Slavery is seen to be the Barbarism w, which it is, there are few who would not coyer ie it from sight, rather than insist upon . sending m it abroad with the flag of the Republic. It is re only because people have been insensible to e. its true character that they have tolerated for a e- moment its exorbitant pretensions. Therefore this long exposition, where Slavery has been he made to stand forth in its five-fold Barbarism, ve with the single object of compelling men to work without wages, naturally prepares the way of to consider the assumption of constitutional ft* lawhe This assumption may be described as an at- ll- tempt to Africanize the Constitution, by intro- ducing into it the barbarous Law of Slavery, ft derived as we have seen originally from bar- barous Africa; and then, through such Afri- v- cauization of the Constitution, to Africanize k the Territories, and to Africanize the National Government. In using this language to ex- iy press the obvious effect of this assumption, I Jr borrow a suggestive term, first employed by a i • Portuguese writer at the beginning of this cen- ’e tury, when protesting against the spread of Slavery in Brazil. (Nee Koster's Travels in Bra- w zil, vol. ii, p. 248.) Analyze the assumption, and it will be found to stand on two pretensions, 11 either of which failing, the assumption fails also. 1- These two are—first, the African pretension of ■S property in man; and, secondly, the pretension I***that such property is recognised in the Consti- n tution. is 1- of 7 8 g P- “ I e [1 e • i- -> e 1 s s 3 e I With regard to the first of these pretensions, I might simply refer to what I have already said at an earlier stage of this argument. But I should do injustice to the part it has been made to play in this controversy, if I did not again expose it. Then I sought particularly to show its Barbarism ; now I shall show something more. Property implies an owner and a thing owned. On the one side is a human being, and on the other side a thing. But the very idea of a human being necessarily excludes the idea of property in that being, j ust as the very idea of a thing necessarily excludes the idea of a human being. It is clear that a thing cannot be a human being, and it is equally clear that a human being cannot be a thing. And the law itself, when it adopts the phrase, “ relation of master and slave,” confess js its reluctance to sanction the claim of property. It shrinks from the pretension of Senators, and satisfies itself with a formula, which does not openly degrade human nature. If this property does exist, out of what title is it derived ?” Under what ordinance of Nature or of Nature’s God is one human being stamped an owner and another stamped a thing ? God is no respecter of persons. Where is the sanction for this respect of certain persons to. a degree which becomes outrage to other persons ? God is the Father of the Human Family, and we are all his children. Where then is the sanction of this pretension by which a brother lays violent hands upon a brother? To ask these questions is humiliating ; but it is clear there can be but one response. There is no sanction for such pretension ; no ordinance for it, or title. On all grounds of reason, and waiving all questions of “positive” statute, the Vermont Judge was nobly right, when, rejecting the claim of a Slave-master, he said: “No; not until you show a Bill of Sale from the Almighty.” Nothing short of this impossible link in the chain of title would do. I know something of the great judgments by which the jurisprudence of our Country has been illustrated; but I doubt if there is anything in the wisdom of Marshall, the learning of Story, or the completeness of Kent, which will brighten with time like this honest decree. The intrinsic feebleness of this pretension is apparent in the intrinsic feebleness of the arguments by which it is maintained. These are two-fold, and both have been put forth in recent debate by the Senator from Mississippi, [Mr. Davis.] The first is the alleged inferiority of the African race; an argument which, while surrendering to Slavery a whole race, leaves it uncertain whether the same principle may not be applied to other races, as to the polished Japanese, who are now the guests of the nation, and even to persons of obvious inferiority in the white race. Indeed, the latter pretension is openly made in other quarters. The Richmond Enquirer, a leading journal of Slave-masters, declares, “ The principle of Slavery is in itself right, and does not depend on difference of complexion." And a leading writer among Slavemasters, George Fitzhugh, of Virginia, in his Sociology for the South, declares-, “ Slavery, black or white, is right and necessary. Nature has made the weak in mind or body for slaves.” And in the same vein, a Democratic paper of South Carolina has said, “ Slavery is the natural and normal condition of the laboring man, white or black." These more extravagant pretensions reveal still further the feeblenesss of the pretension put forth by the Senator; while instances, accumulating constantly, attest the difficulty of discriminating between the two races. Mr. Paxton, of Virginia, tells us, that “ the best blood in Virginia flows in the veins of the slaves ; ” and fugitive slaves have been latterly advertised as possessing “a round face,” “blue eyes,” “ flaxen hair,” and as “ escaping under the pretence of being a white man.” This is not the time to enter upon the great question of race, in the various lights of religion, history, and science. Sure I am that they who understand it best, will be least dis-
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